THE URBANICITY GAZETTE
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THE FIVE-SHILLING CHICKEN THAT SHOOK THE FLEET: A CORRESPONDENT'S INVESTIGATION INTO THE CAREENING BEACHES
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By Isabella Tidecrest
Filed from: The Careening Beaches

—— The Trading Company requires membership. It gives away food. It sells rum for less than water. And according to The Knotter, it may be the most dangerous place in the colonies — for one's purse. ——

This gazette rarely concerns itself with matters of retail commerce, preferring as we do the weightier subjects of piracy, politics, and hangings. However, the reports emerging from The Careening Beaches were of such a fantastic nature that editorial attention was unavoidable.

According to The Knotter, the expedition commenced at approximately ten bells of the morning watch, when a harbour contact suggested that The Careening Beaches might serve their provisioning needs. The establishment — situated in a district of the colonies known for its broad avenues and horseless carriages — required proof of membership before entry. 'The Knotter presented credentials,' our source confirms, 'and was admitted through gates guarded by sentries in crimson waistcoats.'

What followed, if the accounts are to be trusted, was an odyssey of consumption that lasted the better part of three hours.

— ON THE MATTER OF THE SAMPLES —

Every account agrees on one particular: the establishment distributes food without charge to its members. The nature and quantity of this food has, predictably, grown with each retelling. The Knotter initially spoke of 'cheese on crackers and a bit of sausage.' Gulliver Holloway later described 'a complete meal assembled across fourteen stations, including soup, roast meats, exotic pastries, and a beverage of crushed fruit.' A third source, who was not present but claims to have heard the story from someone who was, insists that the samples included 'a whole roast pig, carved to order, with accompaniments.'

The truth, as is so often the case, likely resides somewhere between the cheese and the pig.

As to what was actually PURCHASED — and we use the word loosely, for the quantities involved suggest less 'shopping' than 'provisioning for a siege' — the manifest includes items of both practical and bewildering nature. The centrepiece appears to be a whole chicken, roasted on a spit, sold for a sum so trifling that Gulliver Holloway openly questioned whether they had stolen it by accident. 'Five shillings,' Gulliver Holloway repeated, with the haunted expression of a man whose understanding of economics has been fundamentally shattered. 'For a WHOLE CHICKEN.'

Also procured: bulk spirits, bulk biscuits, bulk items of a nature that defies bulk — one does not, under ordinary circumstances, require forty-eight individual pudding cups, yet here we are.

Your correspondent notes, in closing, that The Careening Beaches has been visited by no fewer than six separate pirate parties in recent weeks, each returning with similar accounts of impossible abundance and economically impossible chickens. Whether this establishment represents a genuine advance in colonial commerce, an elaborate trap for the gullible, or — as one elder captain darkly suggests — 'a siren's call in architectural form, designed to separate a sailor from his doubloons through the witchcraft of perceived savings,' remains a matter for future investigation.

This gazette will continue to monitor developments.

— Isabella Tidecrest, writing from the offices of The Urbanicity Gazette